The present disclosure generally relates to fuel tank assemblies, and particularly relates to a mounting arrangement for a protector mounted to a fuel tank.
There are many known mounting arrangements for mounting a protector to a vehicle's fuel tank. In one such mounting arrangement, a fuel tank protector is mounted to the underside of a half-saddle fuel tank, which is itself mounted to the underside of a vehicle body by a plurality of fuel tank bands. In particular, a plurality of studs are attached to the underside of the fuel tank bands and inserted through mounting holes located on the fuel tank protector. Threaded members (e.g., nuts) are threaded onto each stud protruding through the protector to secure the protector to the fuel tank. This unfortunately requires a large number of parts and extra manufacturing processes (e.g., welding the studs to the bands).
In another known mounting arrangement, an underside-mounted fuel tank protector is sandwiched between the fuel tank and the bands supporting or attaching the fuel tank to the vehicle body. While this arrangement uses a reduced number of parts to mount the protector to the tank, the fuel tank bands may not press tightly against the bottom of the fuel tank, which can prevent the protector from being tightly sandwiched between the tank bands and the fuel tank. To compensate, the protector can be clipped to the fuel tank by a clip member. In particular, the fuel tank can have a stud attached to its underside surface in a center-tunnel area. A mounting hole located on the protector can receive the stud and the clip can be attached to the stud, thereby securing the protector to the fuel tank. With this additional measure, the mounting can be secured, but again extra parts and manufacturing processes are required.
In still another known mounting arrangement, the fuel tank protector covers one side (i.e., a center-tunnel area) of a half-saddle fuel tank and is secured thereto by clips. In particular, female clip features are integrally welded into a vertical wall of the fuel tank and male clip members passed through corresponding holes in the protector are received in the female clip features to mount the protector to the fuel tank. Undesirably, the welding of the female clip features into the fuel tank requires an additional manufacturing step that undesirably increases costs and manufacturing efficiencies. In a variation of this arrangement, the female clips can be slidably received in integrally molded slots of the fuel tank (e.g., oppositely facing slots) but this still requires a plurality of parts to be used for the mounting.